Alpha and Omega

       

The Holy, 'Divine Manifestations are unique and peerless, They are the archetypes of celestial and spiritual virtues in their own age and cycle.  'They stand on the summit of the Mount of Vision and they foreshadow the perfections of an evolving humanity.

(‘Abdu’l-Baha: Star of the West vol. V #5)

The special object of study of spiritual history is the process of humanity’s spiritual evolution in the material world.  It is “the one eternal religion” as it progressively manifests Itself in an unfolding collective social form called civilization. The Baha'i belief that all the religions achieve some glorious consummation in a universal religion is an example of the principle that what appears in perfectly developed form at the end of a process of development is the essence or fundamental form of that process itself. Civilization follows the same trajectory. 

            Due to accepted Darwinian reasoning about evolution, however, the full relationship between the beginning and ending of a developmental process is a difficult one to see, but it is this: the essential form of anything is the last to appear in manifest form, though it is first in rank and the progenitor of all those partial and prior manifested forms that appear in time before it.  That is, the spiritual “essence” is the archetypal form out of which all manifest forms appear and which itself becomes manifest in some form at the end—Alpha become Omega.             

            Each particular civilization is both a material and social expression of a spiritual (eternal) universal and a partial embodiment of the universal social form, called a world civilization, that will appear at the end of civilized development. Said another way, the essential spiritual form unfolds in time as a progressive sequence of organic models called civilizations which ultimately will enfold into a universal structure, or world civilization, at the “end of time”.  Civilization, like revelation, progresses from one particular form of the universal to another, each later one a more complete and comprehensive organization of the same totality.  This is the unfolding through developmental stages of “the Primal oneness" (Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: 263) deposited at the heart of all things until development reaches a fully manifested universal form that embodies all humanity, at which time a new and different kind of cycle of development will commence.

            Said another way, the spiritually first appears fully garbed in the materially last. At every level of creation the essence of that level is last to be manifested, for the material structures capable of embodying and carrying the energy of the archetype must be built first. For the individual human being ‘Abdu’l-Baha states: “The suckling babe passeth through various physical stages, growing and developing at every stage, until its body reacheth the age of maturity. Having arrived at this stage it acquireth the capacity to manifest spiritual and intellectual perfections.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:285)

In human history, the appearance of the “essence” of Revelation and Civilization in manifest form also signals the end of the material cycle and the beginning of the spiritual one.  At every stage the more complete form of anything is related to but logically independent of its less complete forms.  That is, they are incomparable.  The kingdoms of created things moving toward man show us this by analogy.  For however much we humans genetically resemble our neighboring primates, man is independent of the monkey, a new kind of creation.  Man and monkey are incomparable, though both are parts of the creational world. We differ from them by less than 1% of our genetic makeup. But the organization of the genetic material of humanity is different.  To connect man and monkey logically is to fruitlessly search for the missing link in a literal rather than a metaphorical great chain of being.        

            Due to great changes in thinking and feeling, the stages of psychological growth of an individual are also incomparable, as any parent trying to make sense of their teenager—or even their own teenage years--will tell you.  Yet all these changes are held together by the fact that they are happening within one individual.  Because of vast changes, the cycles of collective human development are also incomparable.  As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained: “Now this change, these alterations and this abrogation are due to the impossibility of comparing the time of Christ with that of Moses. The conditions and requirements in the later period were entirely changed and altered. The former laws were, therefore, abrogated.” (Some Answered Questions:94)  Yet all these Dispensations are connected by the recurring Vision of the Prophets moving toward full manifestation.   

            In short, the process of human development moves simultaneously along two pathways which point metaphorically in opposite directions; one, the outer and material, by a revolving upward, which is outward, of all things toward their mature or fully developed physical form.   But in spiritual development and the expansion of consciousness upward or greater means, metaphorically, inward, that is toward the inner or essential form.

            In the natural world the past is the prior and less developed form of the present, which is an earlier and less complete form of the future.  The former precedes the latter, but finds its completion in the latter, not in itself.  But spiritually the greater precedes the lesser, and the prior and greater infuses its later expressions with the forms and energy to progress. All find their fulfillment in return to the first Form when it is manifest in the last form.  To be progressive, all revolution, which means return to the root, must be resurrection into a more complete form.

            Regarding the sequence of Manifestations and where their Words find fulfillment the Bab wrote: “The Bayan and whosoever is therein revolve round the sayings of 'Him Whom God shall make Manifest,' even as the Alif (Gospel) and whosoever was therein revolved round the saying of Muhammad, the Apostle of God.” (Shoghi Effendi. The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh:100)

            But the spiritual relation of the Most Glorious universal Revelation to all previous revelations reverses that: "There is a priority with regard to glory--that is to say, the most glorious precedes the glorious." (Some Answered Questions:116)                       

            Thus the spiritual relation of the universal Revelation to appear at the end of time to its partial and incomplete and previous forms is one of creator to creation, though in historical time this relation appears to be the opposite—the higher appearing later seems in good Darwinian fashion to come out of the former, as is true of all natural cycles of evolution.  Likewise in collective human social development the final form of human material history is a world civilization.  Yet the spiritual relation of this universal form of civilization to previous civilizations, which are the cultural cycles leading up to it, is also one of creator to creation. That is, it is the formal cause of them, while they are the material cause of the universal one.  The universal civilization, the one pointed to by all the Prophets and sung about by poet and seers, spiritually preceded all previous civilizations.  It is their Source, and moving toward it is their purpose. 

            The archetypal form of civilization was metaphorically imprinted on the historical civilizations in some way, as the artist imprints his mental vision on the material canvas, slowing building it into a complete picture.  It is their perfection, originating with the foundation of creation and appearing at the end of it, and they are its partial and periodic realization.  Exactly the same spiritual/material, structure/sequence relationship holds for the whole universe.  The Master tells us: “All beings, whether large or small, were created perfect and complete from the first, but their perfections appear in them by degrees...The organization of God is one; the evolution of existence is one; the divine system is one...” (Some Answered Questions:199)

            More on this in the next post.

The Holy Books as an Expanding Vision of Human Consciousness

Every universal cause is divine and every particular one is temporal.   The principles of the divine Manifestations of God were, therefore, all-universal and all-inclusive.

(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:68)

            Each Holy Book shows humanity traveling the same road and covering the same ground, namely, from the beginning to the end of time, called the apocalypse, after which a whole new kind of history will begin.  Each Book is a reconstruction of the real shape of historical time and meaning of temporal existence.  

            As a book the Bible is an unfolding recreation of an archetypal vision of human possibility; a vision which informs, that is puts form into, the human intelligence so that its innate potential may be expressed.  It is a vision which informed human intelligence prior to the writing of the Bible and will continue to inform this intelligence should the Bible, or at least the Christian religion, become entirely forgotten.  It's the vision of a God-man teaching lesser men how to climb out of the raging sea of material passion into which they have metaphorically fallen and in which they are drowning, scale a forbidding mountain arising in the midst of that sea, maneuver past horrible dragons and monsters which threaten to consume him, and get free of alluring but treacherous sirens and nymphs which tempt him to stop his climb, until he reaches the top where he enters the God-man's golden City of Light and discovers that his entire journey was a scaling of the inner mountain of self, that the journey was his own spiritual development, the goal of which was the recovery of his true self.

            The real drama of the epic is entirely psychological, not historical.  The validating of the quest of consciousness toward the perfect or mature form of itself is entirely experiential, not experimental.  To say the fall is human pride, the sea is human passion, the darkness human ignorance of its real nature, the monsters and sirens the various kind of fears and temptations threatening its advance, the Golden City the human essence—all this is decent enough interpretation. But it is also only a persistent fairy tale and raw material for myth, poetry and even philosophy, the man-made stories of humankind.  

            The Bible is both a single vision of human possibility and is two testaments of that vision.  These are called old and new not just because one came before the other in time, but also because the second is a more developed recreation of the first.  But their essence is the same and timeless.  Christ and Moses, the two most prominent Visionaries in the Bible, though by no means the only Ones, were energized by the same expanding Vision.  The Koran is a later, more complete and unified testament of the same Vision that appeared in the Bible.   For the Vision in the Koran begins and ends exactly where the Bible does, namely, the beginning and end of time.  Hence it is really a recreation by the single mind of Muhammad of the same vision informing the Bible.  This is not to say that He lifted it from the Bible. God revealed the Vision through Him.   He was the Vision: the vision of God looking through Muhammad.

            The Koran is a more expanded and complete Vision because the generic human mind was, at the time of Muhammad, more developmentally advanced than it was during the time of either Moses or Christ, in large part thanks to Their Revelations.  The Vision remains the same, but more of it is revealed to the human consciousness and the human mind grows into it.  And this larger and more unified testament called the Koran reveals a more developed view of human power than was and remains possible to the mind remaining within the confines of the traditional Jewish or Christian statements of the Vision.

            The Holy Books are not reliable empirical history, though they comprehend it.  They do this not by reducing history to the telling of the Sinaic meanderings of some obscure tribes of nomadic ex-slaves, or to the toppling of the Roman edifice from the Christian mole burrowing within, nor by chronicling the rise of some barbarous clans of Arabs to the pinnacle of civilization, and dismissing the rest of humanity as unworthy of attention, except as they interact with these chosen peoples. 

            The Holy Books comprehend history by revealing the essential meaning of historical events and the real spiritual significance for all people of these events.   From a spiritual perspective, the essential events of history are the appearance of the Prophets, the Word of God which periodically becomes flesh and dwells among us, for these bring into human culture's mental activity both a new knowledge and real knowledge renewed.  Many are the cultures more advanced in the arts of civilization than is the culture within which the Prophet first appears.  But it is His appearance and the renewal of civilization His teachings achieve that promises humanity’s social evolution.  His appearance always provokes a crisis of culture and history for that people and their traditions of experience and learning, and the spread of the Message to other cultures provokes the same crisis in those cultures.

            These obscure Hebrews, captive Jews, oppressed Christians and pagan Arabs were chosen vehicles of a single, unfolding transcendental message.  For the Prophets stand at the center of human history and each One is the center not just for His people, but for His time.  His appearance among them makes His people the center of humanity, the materio-cultural source of the spread of the divine Word that influences the entire world.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, for example, that “…the New and Old Testaments propounded throughout all regions the Cause of Christ and were the pulsating power in the body of the human world.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 223)  

            The struggle of these different “chosen people” to come to grips with their special status is their hold upon us and not some special virtue of the people themselves.  Except for this privilege of having their every mundane act refracted through the prism of their relation with a divinity that walked among them, their daily history is no more or less interesting than that of other people, and studying it gets the mind not a fraction of an inch closer to understanding the spiritual odyssey of humanity through time.

            Using the Holy Books as a source book of historical data is also a very tricky affair. One has only to read the Bible’s different sequences of “begats”, or the Gospels varying accounts of the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus to understand this point.  The Bible as history is often just another slippery myth; the Old Testament God, often a big, bad wolf which the Hebrews and Jews have to propitiate or outfox before He gobbles them up in a fit of rage, metamorphoses into the kindly, loving Father of the New Testament Who benevolently watches over and protects even His sparrows. But as the imaginative rendering of the spiritual odyssey of some remarkable peoples, who represent humankind and its evolving consciousness of divinity, the Holy Books make perfect sense. To perceive the Holy Books as the chronicling of the stages of humankind's evolution from a consciousness swaddled in sensuality to one standing upright in spirituality, a consciousness which at one time can only shiver in dread before a huge, scowling Deity, yet later can shelter under the loving kindness of the Father, is profound historiography.

            The Holy Books, then, are not empirical history, or are very bad empirical history.  But whatever such history they contain is entirely irrelevant to their purpose.  They are really an informing and unfolding Vision, something that creates not just history but the awareness of history because they are the essential collective verbal form of the evolving human mind.  History begins with an infusion of divine energy from eternity, and is renewed, or begun again and further developed, with another infusion, setting up cycles and stages of a developmental process—toward what?

The Holy Books articulate the inner structure of history unfolding through time as a progressively developmental sequence of religions and their civilizations toward a teleological finale, which can only be the emergence of that structure itself in full material form within both history and the mind of man, uniting the cultural and the spiritual cycles into one symbol and image.  When this unification in consciousness occurs, the latent identity of history and mind will become manifest and man will see history as the Prophets have always done. 

           

Spiritual History

History, however long, complex and tumultuous in appearance, is at its core one and single and at its heart is sacred.

(George Townshend. The Promise of All Ages p. 43)

            Historical understanding in a philosophical sense is the capacity to grasp essential forms of meaning and human development.  In any philosophy of history, whether social, economic, intellectual, Marxist, or any other kind, to discover and elucidate meaning historical events do not dictate perceptions and concepts, though they influence them, rather perceptions and concepts are used to reconstruct events. That is, a philosophy of history does not want representations but re-presentations, for simply recapitulating the events and viewpoints of past ages will not give us the complete meaning of those times.  This requires another kind of view, an overall philosophical one.  

For example, when I was in high school and university, more years ago than I care to admit, the history textbooks often presented the progress of  “western” civilization as some sort of cultural baton-pass from the “Greeks” through the Empire of Rome, whose “fall” sent “Europe” stumbling blindly into the tunnel of the Dark Ages, which came out into the bright light of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, then vast expansion around the world, but especially into the western hemisphere where everything came to some grand finale in America.  This philosophy of history—arranged on the scheme of ancient-medieval-modern history--was put forth to show the superiority of the west even when it was clearly inferior, or its “peoples” did not yet know they were superior.  The grand march of the west had all the feel of an ineluctable destiny.  It is a completely discredited view.  So the search is on for a new and universal one.     

In his groundbreaking study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that a new paradigm in science is never cobbled together from bits and pieces of other viewpoints, nor is it laboriously figured out piece by piece before it appears.  Its essential features emerge into view whole though not wholly developed, and while it may again recede into unconsciousness and come back, recede and return again to view until it can be held by the conscious mind, from the beginning it was another and complete way of looking at the world. 

            Following Kuhn, a universal perspective of history is not the sum total of the different viewpoints—social, political, economic, intellectual, religious etc.--about historical events.  Rather universality is its own way of viewing humanity's history.  A truly universal vision of history must from its inception be a distinct way of viewing the past and interpreting human experience, not an integration of different views but their integrator.  Universality means to unite within a single vision purposeful processes both within and over time; it must unite past, present and future.  Universality is not just to unite within one such conceptual framework the whole world now, a mental exercise more properly called a global view. 

             Where can one look for such a universal conception?  A key can be found in the words of George Townshend found above.  Sacredness puts religion at the center of humanity’s meaningful development.  But this is religion in a special sense.  By religion I don’t mean religious doctrines or theologies, but as ‘Abdu’l-Baha defined religion: "the essential connection that emanates from the realities of things", (Some Answered Questions:158) connections that are known by the "universal divine mind" which is the "special attribute of the Holy Manifestations." (Some Answered Questions:218)

            The Bahá’í view states that what gives both structure and development, unity and sequence, to human history is the succession of the Manifestations of God and Their progressively unifying Message. From this perspective the different religions are "different stages in the eternal history and constant evolution of one religion." (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: 114.)  The "divine and creative purpose” of this periodic renewal of the human condition by the powerful impulse of Revelation “was the evolution of spiritual man. . . The cycle of existence is the same circle; it returns. The tree of life has ever borne the same heavenly fruit." (`Abdu'l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace: 220.)

            From the perspective of the evolution of spiritual man, history is spiritual history.  But spiritual history is not another branch of historical study, even as a special kind of expanded heilgeschichte, or “salvation history” to describe God's redemptive work in the events of history.  Neither is it the mere chronicle of the succession of religions.  Scripture is not secular history, but divine history, and divine history is in no way divorced from the economic, political, social or intellectual history of humankind: these being in fact parts and expressions of divine history.  Spiritual history is not just God's redemptive work, but also humanity's developmental work through God.   

            Spiritual history is the study of the play of transformations, formed in time, by the changing configuration of eternal forms, the revelations from God which founded the great religions.  The meaning of collective human development, then, is to be found in humanity’s relation to this great overarching theme, this transcendent premise, this unfolding Divine purpose of the Revelations that are each an expression of what philosophers traditionally called Logos. 

Mr. Townshend summed up his philosophy of history gleaned from study of the writings of Baha’u’llah this way: “History, he (Baha’u’llah) taught, in its length and breadth is one and single.  It is one in its structure.   It is one in its movement.   From the beginning of time the whole human race has been subject to one law of development; and it has advanced age after age in accordance with one and the same principle and by the application of one and the same method.   Its whole movement has one source and one cause, and is directed towards one goal.  The unification of the world, instead of being an afterthought, or of needing an improvised miracle for its completion, is the normal conclusion of a process that has been going on since the race began.” (The Promise of All Ages:28)

A history of all humanity that is “one in its structure…one in its movement” is directed and animated by Revelation through two processes, each operating both within every Dispensation of a Great Prophet and as the final purpose of all Revelation.  These interacting processes I call “reorganization” and “development.”  The purpose of these processes is the actualization of human potential to advance civilization. But these are really two aspects of one process; that is to say, reorganization is development.  Why?  From a universal standpoint (i.e one that simultaneously unites humanity’s past, present and future in developmental time and the world now as a single space) there can only be transformation within a universal system.  A universal system cannot transcend itself, only forms of itself as more of its potentials are brought into actuality by a greater power than the system itself.  This is what Baha’is name progressive revelation.  Growth is the progressive actualization of latent potentials.  Hence, human development by Revelation does not simply present history as a sequence of events, but as a sequence of spiritual contexts in which the whole of human character is periodically transformed to develop humanity's spiritual, mental, and physical capacities.  As Baha’u’llah wrote: “Is not the object of every Revelation to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions (The Kitab-i-Iqan:240) 

            The complete spiritual history of mankind has yet to be written. But since the coming of Bahá’u’lláh the basic guidelines for such a writing are known because we know where historians should look for the real pivots of human history: to the Manifestations and Their Message.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá further defines that purpose for us: “For a single purpose were the Prophets, one and all, sent down to earth...that the world of man should become the world of God, this nether realm the Kingdom…that the organic unity should reappear and the bases of discord be destroyed and life everlasting and grace everlasting become the harvest of mankind.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:31)

            More on this topic in the next post.

The Great Code of Art

The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.

(William Blake)

Some believe that poets and other artists are the first creators of symbols. But the Prophets precede the poets.  Artists create cultural symbols, but the prophets give us sacred symbols.  What is the difference?

The word symbol means to throw together.  The origin of all symbols is a division in need of reunion:  the two become one, yet remain separate.  Learning, too, starts with perceiving difference, with making distinctions. What is identical to you cannot be known by you.  Distinctions made in perception are combined through symbols into knowledge.  Symbols throw together levels of reality and allow the mind to move freely between them.  But the question is: How many levels are to be connected?  The spiritual mind says three: divine, human and natural.  The secular mind says two: humanity and nature.  The poetic symbol can connect the human with the natural. Yet, since the human spirit longs for the transcendent, a union of human thought with only nature ultimately leaves the soul feeling incomplete and looking for more. 

Such was the attitude stated by a contemporary of Blake’s, the poet and critic Coleridge.  He wrote in his notebook on April 14, 1805: “In looking at objects of Nature while I am thinking, as at yonder moon dim-glimmering thro' the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be seeking, as it were asking, a symbolical language for something within me that already and forever exists, rather than observing anything new. Even when that latter is the case, yet still I have always an obscure feeling as if that new phenomenon were the dim Awakening of a forgotten or hidden Truth of my inner Nature…”

Spiritually, religion starts with a communication from God, with the revelation of the Word.  This communication from the Divine calls humanity back to Him and to itself from a state of separation.  Psychologically, religion starts within human beings with a sense of alienation from oneself and separation from God.  Their reunion is re-ligia. Only the sacred symbol connects the three levels of the sacred cosmos.  But it all starts from above.  I mean that if the Divine informs the human from above, it must then send down the codes that enable the human mind to read and unlock the secrets of creation.  The first act of the human intelligence in relation to the sacred is, therefore, to receive.  

Scripture is the symbolic code of the spiritual world, which is the essence of nature and of us.   Sacred symbology is the means of reconnecting all things, for it unites the essential spiritual forms of things with their manifest material forms, the B and E joined and knit together.  Poetic metaphors are reflections and imitations of the sacred symbols revealed in scripture.  It is in this sense that religion may be called the highest order symbol system—the one by which other symbol systems are ultimately founded and legitimized.  

Blake’s “great code” comment, then, states exactly the relation of the divine Word with human knowledge from a spiritual perspective.  Art creates symbolic reality, but scripture is the great code of that poetic work.  'Abdu'l-Bahá said the same thing: "All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit. When this light shines through the mind of a musician, it manifests itself in beautiful harmonies. Again, shining through the mind of a poet, it is seen in fine poetry and poetic prose. When the Light of the Sun of Truth inspires the mind of a painter, he produces marvellous pictures. These gifts are fulfilling their highest purpose, when showing forth the praise of God." (Quoted in The Chosen Highway: 167)

Baha’u’llah not only saw this relation between sacred symbols and human poetic ones, as did all the Manifestation, but also He recreated and renewed that relation.  He wrote: “The Sun of Truth is the Word of God upon which dependeth the education of those who are endowed with the power of understanding and of utterance. It is the true spirit and the heavenly water, through whose aid and gracious providence all things have been and will be quickened. Its appearance in every mirror is conditioned by the colour of that mirror. For instance, when its light is cast upon the mirrors of the hearts of the wise, it bringeth forth wisdom. In like manner when it manifesteth itself in the mirrors of the hearts of craftsmen, it unfoldeth new and unique arts, and when reflected in the hearts of those that apprehend the truth it revealeth wondrous tokens of true knowledge and discloseth the verities of God's utterance.” (Compilations, The Importance of the Arts in Promoting the Faith)

Art in all its forms and expressions, the metaphors, analogies, images and figurations which are its tools and creations, manufacture symbolic codes of perceived reality.  But the Holy Books create the Reality perceived.   They are constitutive of reality.  The Quran notes:

And with Him are the keys of the secret things; none knoweth them but

He: He knoweth whatever is on the land and in the sea; and no leaf falleth

but He knoweth it; neither is there a grain in the darknesses of the earth,

nor a thing green or sere, but it is noted in a distinct writing.  (Qur'an 6:59)

 

And Baha’u’llah states: “The Word of God is the king of words and its pervasive influence is incalculable. It hath ever dominated and will continue to dominate the realm of being. The Great Being saith: The Word is the master key for the whole world, inasmuch as through its potency the doors of the hearts of men, which in reality are the doors of heaven, are unlocked…It is an ocean inexhaustible in riches, comprehending all things. Every thing which can be perceived is but an emanation therefrom.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 173)

Blake’s poetic vision, based upon his reading of the Bible, was vast.  Writing during a time when materialistic science was just getting started on its self-appointed task of collapsing a spiritual cosmos into a physical universe, he wrote his friend Thomas Butts on Nov. 22, 1802:

Now I a fourfold vision see,
And a fourfold vision is given to me;
‘Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah’s night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newton’s Sleep!

What Blake means by single vision is Nature as purely objective reality to man; a cold, indifferent, mathematical thing as seen by the Newtonian science of Blake’s day.  The two-fold vision is the connection of the human mind and Nature in a creative symbolic union, as Coleridge wrote; three-fold is this human and natural symbolic connection plus the layers of human subjective life with which we also have the relation of conscious/unconscious.  These layers of imagination, dream, and feeling, do provide a basis for creative art, but can lead potentially to the fallacy of psychologizing spiritual realities, making the illusion of their human creation.  Blake’s four-fold vision sees the spiritual as an objective Reality above and nature as objective reality below man, but both in true creative and symbolic relation with humanity as signs of God, as the human soul is.  Blake saw it all.  He fought all his life to restore in poetic form the wholeness of spiritual vision. 

A holy world is a whole one, for holiness comes from wholeness.  An unholy world is one whose parts are disconnected and fragmented.  We see in our fragmenting world not only the eclipse of spiritual thought within human consciousness, but also, as a consequence, the fracturing of a unified culture.  Likewise, the inner world of human consciousness itself is fractured when it loses connection with the spiritual dimension.  Because of this fracture we have lost the ability to read the creation symbolically as a sacred form, as Blake could, and are left only with a deep sense of incompleteness.  The Holy Books can teach us how to read symbolically again, for they are “the Great Code of Art.”   

Spiritual Rationality

Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man's creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.

(Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 34)

Many wishing to reform education want to make changes in curriculum, class-size, testing, school hours etc., because these yield quantifiable results that show measureable progress toward some goal, like increased literacy.  Others would start by changing the concept of education to an open classroom or a project-centered education, and the like.  Such changes are deeper and more process oriented, more qualitative than quantitative.  But the fundamental change taking place is before, both in time and importance, either of these.  This change is neither physical nor conceptual.  A seismic shift, a sea-change in consciousness--whatever the metaphor employed to convey something that is felt but not yet understood, because it is going on far “beyond” the level of conscious thought—is occurring that makes much educational reform out of touch.  We are renovating the house, when the ground itself is giving way beneath our feet. 

A new consciousness is needed to see education in a new way.  Entering any new realm of consciousness both requires and brings new perceptions and conceptions that are neither part of nor accessible by a previous level of consciousness.  Ironically, to those in the old consciousness these new perceptions seem out of touch with “reality”, meaning their reality.  Consciousness can only mean consciousness of something(s).  It is not an empty state; one can’t be conscious of nothing.  Hence consciousness and the objects of its perception form a unity in relationship, so that one’s state of being directly perceives realities peculiar to that state.  Once one is in a state of being the knowledge of that state is one with it; they mirror each other.  But getting from state to state is the challenge.    

My perspective is that there are three levels or kinds of consciousness.  As human beings are biologically equipped to perceive the natural world given to their physical senses, and to perceive and engage the world of thought through their mental faculties, such as the aesthetic and logical faculties, they also possess spiritual faculties with which to experience a spiritual world.  Too, as the senses directly perceive the natural world, there being, for example, no visible intermediary between the eye and the physical object, and as the mind directly perceives intellectual realities, so the spiritual faculties, like faith and vision, directly perceive the spiritual world, giving the human being intrinsic relations with the sacred. 

When an inner state is brought forth from potentiality into actuality it is usually felt as a profoundly disruptive experience often called a spiritual, religious or mystical experience, a leap of faith, a new state of mind, an experiencing of the divine or sacred, and many other names.  This experience starts a new consciousness, is the ground of a new rationality.

All change and new knowledge comes forth from within us.  OK, but from where exactly?  Again there are several kinds of answers.  Some say the unconscious—some dark, subterranean region underneath the conscious.  Others say that we intuit new knowledge; or are inspired, like artists.  These are names for a relation not with an objective spiritual dimension, but with the unknown subjective parts of ourselves.  This process is called “psychologizing” a reality.  It is how those who do not believe in a higher Reality that is in relation with humanity account for new knowledge and profound experience.  It comes out of us with no other source. 

Philosophers say we can know because they posit within humanity an innate power called Reason that thinks and acts rationally.  For them, reason and rationality are not the same: reason is a psychological faculty, whereas rationality is the exercise of reason.  Rationality is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately.  It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action—a rational explanation.  Also, a rational decision is one that is not just reasoned, but that is also optimal for achieving a goal or solving a problem.  Individuals or organizations are called rational if they make optimal decisions in pursuit of their goals.  But these are all linear and sequential cognitive processes, and rationality, others note, is more than such cognition.  Marshall McLuhan writes: “Rationality or consciousness is itself a ratio or proportion among the sensuous components of experience, and is not something added to such sense experience.” (Understanding Media:109)    

Thus, there must be different kinds of rationality, or else some are rational while others are not—which is divisive and a prejudice.  Perhaps rational consciousness is a kind of harmony between the human intelligence and the world that occurs when they are in a resonant vibration of thought and being.  There are many of these harmonies, and they are manifest in the various human cultures, mores, ethical principles and styles of thought.  Each is rational. 

But there is a third kind of rationality, spiritual rationality.  What is the difference?  Spiritual powers connect with higher Reality to create spiritual consciousness and rationality, because Reality--call it what you will--informs humanity from above, not from below, as in unconsciousness, or only from within, as Reason, or from relating with the world, as in cultural consciousness.  Since Baha’u’llah says that all planes and states are folded up and hidden away within the human reality, spiritual knowledge and experience is also within us, but is educed from our being by this higher Reality.  Spiritual rationality is the activity of our intelligence formulating new ratios of thought and sense to conform to spiritual patterns revealed in the Word.  All forms of rationality like this are expressions of the human reality.  Baha’u’llah names this infinitely rich mine of potential the rational faculty, and describes it not as a psychological power but a spiritual one that brings into relation all our other powers and faculties.    

He writes: “Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, thy will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical senses or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty. So closely are they related unto it, that if in less than the twinkling of an eye its relationship to the human body be severed, each and every one of these senses will cease immediately to exercise its function, and will be deprived of the power to manifest the evidences of its activity. It is indubitably clear and evident that each of these afore-mentioned instruments has depended, and will ever continue to depend, for its proper functioning on this rational faculty, which should be regarded as a sign of the revelation of Him Who is the sovereign Lord of all.”  He goes on to say that all human powers and abilities, physical, mental and spiritual, “have been generated through the agency of this sign of God. Immeasurably exalted is this sign, in its essence and reality, above all such names and attributes. Nay, all else besides it will, when compared with its glory, fade into utter nothingness and become a thing forgotten.”  (Gleanings:163)

‘Abdu’l-Baha said: “God's greatest gift to man is that of intellect, or understanding.” (Paris Talks:41)  Here intellect does not refer just to the faculty of cognition, but to the interplay of all our faculties of intelligence to attain understanding.  It is the divine Intellect, and if it is a gift, there must be a giver.  Baha’u’llah wrote that this power of understanding is “first and foremost among the favors which the Almighty hath conferred upon man.” (Gleanings:194)  And the purpose of this faculty is “none other except to enable His creature to know and recognize the one true God -- exalted be His glory.” (Gleanings:193) 

We must make a creative leap of being into the transcendent dimension of spirit so that we may see spiritual reality.  That spiritual reality is already “there” in the patterns of God’s Word, and is also within us “here” as the potential of a new state of humanity hidden away within us.  We must resonate with the new spiritual vibration before we can build spiritual education.  Yet, we cannot find it just by thinking “rationally” about it, but must engage with Reality and have that Reality gradually bring forth that new consciousness from us.  We must find the new foundation for the house of education.

 

Religious Teachings in Education

Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic.

(Abraham Maslow: Toward a Psychology of Being: iv.)

            Spiritual education draws no sharp line between sacred and secular concerns, for properly speaking, the universe is one creation.  All education is one, because all learning is one.  Learning is one because education exists, finally, not to serve the interests of the state and not just to train students for some vocation. It exists to develop the whole person, heart, soul and intelligence, in the restless expansion of consciousness through an exploration of reality in all its facets and levels.  As much as training the logical and aesthetic faculties, full education must train what we might call the religious faculty resident within the human reality. 

            Religion is a universal spiritual, cultural and psychological phenomenon.  Only modern western man feels he can do without it, and he is paying the price.  The religious spirit, which should never be wholly and exclusively identified with any particular religion, will not be denied.  It is a permanent endowment of humanity. It  is not some ancient need that, like childhood, can be outgrown, but a perennial power needed to  fully investigate reality.  People cannot function effectively or for long without religion, and can function even then only so long as their world is materially secure.  We cannot function without religion because religion puts us in touch with dimensions we cannot otherwise know about.  Historian Christopher Dawson writes: “Whenever genuine religion exists it must always possess this quality, since it is of the essence of religion to bring man into relation with transcendental and eternal realities.” (Religion and the Rise of Western Culture: 25)    

True religion is marked by a love or attraction for the unknown, for the religious impulse is fundamentally a seeking after transcendence.  Thus it actually strongly opposes the stick in the mud attitude, the safe and secure blandness that characterizes materialistic life and, to be honest, most of established religion.  This same attitude of caution has also conquered education.  Real religion has a permanently revolutionary thrust.  It is the power to transform hearts, minds and spirits, since it must always try to incorporate new experience, new knowledge, and new perception of the eternal.  Religion taps the deepest springs of human motivation, the eternal quest for God and self-knowledge.  It arouses our faculties and fuels the actualization of our powers, for we must wrestle to assimilate transcendence and in this way we learn of our strengths and limitations. True religion, the religion of the Prophets not the theologians, says every encounter with the unknown is an opportunity to achieve more self-knowledge. 

            I am not advocating for religious indoctrination or even strictly religious instruction in schools.  Neither am I just arguing for some comfy spiritual purpose that can be held quietly in common by students, teachers and administrators; even if that purpose is in harmony with the unifying and globalizing forces at work in the world today.  I am advocating for an education that holds the active and open investigation of the spiritual to be not just a legitimate field of inquiry, but an essential one, and an awakened religious consciousness is essential for this.                

            The accelerating breakdown at every level of our social order calls out desperately for a renewal not of established religion, but of the religious spirit so that the sacred may once again exert the healing, energizing influence of which it is capable.  That healing, like most healing, is best accomplished not through invasive surgeries and poisonous chemicals, but by properly adding more energy and life to an ailing body.  In this case it is the body of human thought desperately ill from a toxic ingestion of secularism and materialism           

            If we ask: Should schools concern themselves with religion? The answer is: “By all means, yes!”, but with some provisos.  Traditionally, religion makes up our primary education in the sacred and this education develops consciousness. “Religion is the consciousness of society,” writes Daniel Bell. (The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism:155)  When it is good, religion is a society-building force.  But, generally speaking, today religion is not good.  At best, it has become little more than a means of personal comfort or belief: at worst, a set of narrow dogmas and antiquated moral injunctions that cramp reason and thought. In neither case is it generating new knowledge by unlocking the mysteries of mind and creation or bringing forth people capable of building an ever-advancing civilization.  In these debased forms religion MUST be kept out of schools.

            But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  It is often argued that education should be neutral, balanced and objective.  I agree.  But that is precisely why we must be concerned with religion and the sacred.  Removing religion from education does not make education neutral.  Rather it makes it one where only a nonreligious view of things can be expressed, and thus there is no chance for dialogue and the development of the full range of human capacities. 

            Religion, like education and science, is also a public institution, though it is neither a governmental nor an academic one.  Rather it is a congregational one.  Socially, religion takes place within a community of faith with the sacred text as the primary instrument for the education of the faithful, and worship, prayer, service based upon moral principle, and other spiritual practices the content of faith.  It is an impoverishment of education to leave religion out of schooling altogether.  The separation of church and state cannot also mean the separation of spiritual and moral values from everyday life.  The changes in consciousness and society of the past few hundred years have made sacred knowledge more critical rather than less critical than ever to know and use.  The goal of a value-free science has made it nearly valueless in many arenas of human questioning.     

             Let us be clear: what is missing in our culture is not a lack of religiosity, but a pervasive lack of spirituality.  David Sehat in his book, The Myth of Religious Freedom, argues that the supposed decline in religion in America is a myth.  Only between 10 and 20 percent of the U.S. populace were church members in 1776.  But during the Second Great Awakening early in the nineteenth century, church membership expanded rapidly, doubling to 35 percent of the population by 1850. Church members became a simple majority in 1906, and 62 percent of the American populace belonged to religious institutions in 2000, though not exclusively Christian churches.  Religion, he believes, has become more important in the public life of the United States over the last 200 years, not less.  But though it is important, religion is not articulating a religious social answer to our ills.

            Thus, I am not arguing to introduce religion into schools, but spirituality.  I believe that we have lost a sense of the sacred, and, indeed, traditional organized religion has played its part in depriving us of this, because it has lost its own transcendent impulse.  If students are to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the world, which must include awareness of the sacred dimension of the world and themselves, schools have an obligation to teach, not religious dogma, but what religion tells us about the mysteries of human existence and the fundamental principles of life.  In discussing the sacred dimension of life I am merely calling attention to the inescapable fact that the human spirit longs for transcendence and that without it we become, as Maslow warns, "sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic."

             

Light and Dark

“I think we have a situation where both the ‘forces of growth’ and the ‘forces of death’ are strengthening, and have been for some time,” said Oliver L. Phillips, a prominent tropical forest researcher with the University of Leeds in England. “The latter are more eye-catching, but the former have in fact been more important so far.”

Justin Gillis The Threats to a Crucial Canopy New York Times

           

In the lead quote from a New York Times article, what Mr. Phillips is referring to is the large-scale destruction of the world’s forests due to global warming, which does not enable cold winters to kill off pests, to drought in many places, to acid rain, and to other environmental problems.  The drama of the world’s forests is another of the looming economic/social/ecological/human disasters with which we are threatened.  Then there is the exploitation of huge populations and natural resources by gigantic companies, such as Monsanto, that exist only for their own profit, and seem to lack any sort of ethical principle other than making money.  The latest oppression of the Iranian Baha’i community by the government there is the denial of the right to exist of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, which was set up because Baha’i children and youth were denied public education in the first place.  The list of the actions of those representing the forces of death can go on and on.

But Mr. Phillips makes the interesting point that even within forests both forces of growth and death are strengthening, and have been for some time, but that the forces of life, while not so dramatic, have always been more important.  Correct.  The same is true all over the world, as the existing order--including Nature it seems--increasingly heats-up with contention.  Baha’is call these reciprocal powers the “forces of integration” and “forces of disintegration.”  Terminology does not matter.  What matters is the truth that this world is a composite of opposites at every level, and they are being pulled apart.  How do we make unity out of this?  One word: Justice.  But there is a twist here. Spiritually, unity precedes justice, but socially justice precedes unity. Whaaa? 

Baha’u’llah wrote: “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth….This goal excelleth every other goal, and this aspiration is the monarch of all aspirations. So long, however, as the thick clouds of oppression, which obscure the day star of justice, remain undispelled, it would be difficult for the glory of this station to be unveiled to men's eyes.” (Gleanings:288)  Unity, then, is our goal.

            But, if the glory of unity cannot be perceived so long as the sun of justice is hidden by thick clouds of oppression, then dispelling these clouds is the precondition for what to shine forth?  Not the light of unity, but the sun of justice.  Only when the sun of justice shines forth can the glory of unity be unveiled.  Unity is there waiting.  Again, Baha’u’llah wrote: “The light of men is Justice.  Quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny.  The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:66)  The purpose of clearing away oppression and tyranny is to enable the sun of justice to shine.  But the purpose of justice is the appearance of unity.  Now we often say that the purpose of justice is the lifting of oppression or the redress of injustice.  But that is the work of justice.  The purpose of this work is the appearance of unity.  One light turns on the other.  Let’s look a little closer.

For the oppressed and disadvantaged, the struggle is to achieve any justice at all.  This effort to achieve justice often revolves around conflict of some sort.  In any human concern conflict is inevitable so long as competitive self-interest drives human desire.  To resolve or prevent such conflict requires spiritually-motivated individual action, but it also requires a framework of formalized cooperative relationships in which competing desires can be integrated and harmonized.  Without such a framework unity can only mean the strongest imposing their will upon others in the name of “for their own good.”  This has always degenerated into a squalid tyranny that benefits only a few. 

            In this light, too, we can clearly see that when rampant injustice is itself a chief cause of civil unrest, paternalistic calls for unity are themselves part of the oppression experienced by the oppressed, for it not only leaves them no avenue to redress their plight, but also blindly defines the struggle for justice as the cause of the unrest.  This is not just blaming the victim but emasculating him.  The dream of justice turns into a nightmare of injustices whenever it is driven by self-interest, even if that interest is morally legitimate.                               

All competitive relationships are alluring in their promises to combat evil or redress wrongs.  Contentious strivings to undo inequity seem noble, right, and good, but they are also expressions of the competitive lower nature which sees conflict as the only means of achieving any goal.  Conflict seems to be necessary to clear away “the thick clouds of oppression”, but, wittingly or no, conflict only unleashes more of those “contrary winds of oppression and tyranny”--because action provokes reaction--that drive humanity through cycles of rebellion, retribution, and revolution, making general chaos and decline inevitable.  The House of Justice addressed this point:  “Humanity’s crying need will not be met by a struggle among competing ambitions or by protest against one or another of the countless wrongs afflicting a desperate age.  It calls, rather, for a fundamental change of consciousness.” (To Champion the Cause of Justice:29) 

If the purpose of justice is the appearance of unity, then the purpose of justice is not to set things right.  Nor is it to fight injustice.  That would mean that the purpose of justice is justice.  No, if the purpose of justice is the appearance of unity then a consciousness of unity, a leap into our nobler nature which operates on spiritual principle, sets things right.  That consciousness exists within us already.  “Unity,” wrote the Universal House of Justice, “is a condition of the human spirit.” (One Common Faith: 42)  That is why I say that spiritually unity precedes justice, but socially justice precedes unity.  Further, justice demands universal participation in solving problems and meeting common challenges. Spiritually: “The proper response to oppression,” wrote the House of Justice, ‘is neither to succumb in resignation nor to take on the characteristics of the oppressor. The victim of oppression can transcend it through an inner strength that shields the soul from bitterness and hatred and which sustains consistent, principled action.” (Message to Baha’is of Iran June 23, 2009) 

This is not to say that injustices should not be addressed, wrongs righted, that oppression can be passively accepted, that evil and cruelty can continue, because a unity consciousness will take care of everything.  We can never be neutral in the face of injustice, tyranny and oppression.  Unity can find no secure footing so long as injustice continues.  The struggle for justice must be carried out through every available legitimate means, but the motivating purpose of this struggle must be not just to lift the burden of oppression, but, rather, for unity to appear.  Perhaps a great example is Nelson Mandela after he became leader of South Africa.  He did not try to exact retribution upon his oppressors, but rather to build up structures of equality, justice, and equal opportunity, and, as a result of this effort, discriminatory structures and attitudes are disappearing.

            But conflict has purposes that are under a Higher Power.  As the forces of life and the forces of death engage in an ever more violent clash, let us strive to bring forth, to educe, our consciousness of unity.  Then perhaps we may see, as Baha’u’llah did, that “had not every tribulation been made the bearer of Thy wisdom, and every ordeal the vehicle of Thy providence, no one would have dared oppose us, though the powers of earth and heaven were to be leagued against us.” (Prayers and Meditations p. 14)